


what is old is new again

by vivelarepublique



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically all les Amis make an appearance more or less, Chief Guide Center, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, also yay for photojournalism references!, but chief/guide/centre though, mostly guide/centre but yeah, no real plot just happiness and Amis interactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivelarepublique/pseuds/vivelarepublique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without his glasses, Combeferre had truly <em>terrible</em> vision.</p>
<p>In which Combeferre sighs many times, Courfeyrac has a flair for the dramatic, and Enjolras helps save the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what is old is new again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whooves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whooves/gifts).



> Eternal thanks go to [Emily](http://whooves.tumblr.com) for editing and without whom this would not have been written. I (lovingly) blame you. And a shout-out to [Devorah](http://gorramhero.tumblr.com), my fellow English major, for helping me with grammar queries.

Without his glasses, Combeferre had truly _terrible_ vision.

This is not to say he couldn’t see anything, however. Courfeyrac had been more than happy to test this one afternoon, snagging Combeferre’s glasses and playing the how-many-fingers-am-I-holding-up game (“No, _I’m_ the one supposed to ask the questions, Combeferre! But the answer is one, though frankly, that’s just rude!”).

Regardless, Combeferre’s less-than-excellent vision had never been an issue. For no matter how much of a mess of posters, pamphlets, and books his and Enjolras’s apartment became, Combeferre always kept his glasses either on his face or safely on his bedside table when he slept and showered.

But upon his return from a week at home with his family, Combeferre’s distinctive thin, round, wire rim frames were nowhere to be found. In their place was a pair of metallic purple ones, still bearing some semblance of an elliptical shape, but with the notable addition of a colorful confetti pattern on their arms.

Needless to say, when Combeferre walked into the ABC Society’s weekly meeting, this time at Courfeyrac and Marius’s flat, he was _not_ the one to draw attention to the colorful anomaly on his face. Neither, surprisingly, was Courfeyrac, who was far too engaged in a rant to Bahorel, and anyone who would listen, about the humidity and its less than desirable effects on his coiffure.

In fact, it was Eponine who first noticed the change.

“Nice new specs there, Combeferre,” she said with a smirk from her spot perched on the arm of a worn couch. The rest of the group was scattered both over the floor and on Courfeyrac’s various pieces of furniture, with soda cans, beer bottles, pamphlets, and posters covering the coffee table in the middle of the space.

“The glasses are not mine,” Combeferre said with the first of many sighs, sinking down on the couch next to Joly and Bossuet, “or at least, they’re only mine temporarily.”

At the sound of Eponine saying, “new specs,” any hope of discretion that Combeferre may have had was long gone, as the rest of the group’s attention was now drawn to his face.

Courfeyrac was the most vocal and the least subtle in his reaction.

“Oh my _GOD_ , Combeferre! What even _are_ those?? It looks like you stole them from a grade school girl!” he squealed. As he did so, he jumped up and managed to knock over his chair dangerously close to Grantaire’s spot on the floor. Grantaire merely sighed and scooted over, taking another swig of his beer while mumbling something about Pandora’s box.

“That would be because they _are_ a grade school girl’s, Courfeyrac,” Combeferre replied with yet another sigh, pushing his hair out of his face. “Or they used to be, anyways. They’re my sister’s old glasses.”

“And what, pray tell, happened to yours?” Bossuet said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Joly chirped from his spot between the two men. He frowned slightly as he continued, “and if they’re not yours, then are they not your own prescription? Because I don’t want you to be straining your eyes...”

“Thank you, Joly,” Combeferre said with a smile. “They’re more like an old prescription than an entirely wrong one, really. My eyes will be fine.”

Joly returned the smile before curling back up to Bossuet, who draped his arm across the other man’s shoulders.

Courfeyrac, however, was not about to relent.

“You never answered Bossuet’s question,” he began. “So you’re wearing your sister’s old glasses.”

“Yes.”

“Which means your old ones are broken.”

“Right again.”

“Which means something _disastrous_ must have happened to _shatter_ the _noble_ Combeferre’s _mighty_ spectacles.”

“Obviously,” Combeferre massaged his temples as he spoke, “Though _disastrous_ is a tad hyperbolic.”

“Soooo,” Courfeyrac drawled, leaning in towards Combeferre, “if it’s not _hyperbolic_ ,” he emphasized this with air quotes, “then why don’t you tell us what happened?”

“Because it was nothing _dramatic_ , Courfeyrac,” Combeferre said, a small, slightly exasperated smile playing on his lips, “The frames got bent out of shape and the glass in one of the lenses broke.”

This response was not satisfactory to Courfeyrac, who proceeded to pout. Combeferre rolled his eyes.

“They fell off my bedside table and my sister stepped on them as she went to wake me one morning.”

As this elaboration was also not nearly thrilling enough, Courfeyrac immediately moved on to the next most potentially-entertaining part of the anecdote.

“And then you ended up _wearing_ her old glasses?”

“Yes,” Combeferre continued, anticipating Courfeyrac’s next inquiries, “because unlike me, her vision has gotten better, so her older prescription was closer to my own current one.”

“And then these eight-year-old’s glasses ended up _fitting_ your head?” Feuilly interjected, acting as a voice of reason in a situation that was far too ridiculous for logic.

“They are a bit tight,” Combeferre replied, “but it was either these or nothing until I can get a new pair.”

“Well _I_ think you look dashing,” Bahorel said through his chuckles, which quickly dissolved into not-so-subtle coughs when Combeferre shot him a look.

“Now that you’ve all gotten your fill of commenting on my new glasses--must you Instagram _everything_ Courfeyrac?” Combeferre sighed as his phone buzzed with the notification.

“I pride myself on my timely report of content,” said Courfeyrac with a bow and a mock round of applause courtesy of Bahorel and Grantaire.

“Yes, quite the rising photojournalist, aren’t you? Maybe the Chicago Sun-Times will give you a call,” Combeferre replied dryly. Courfeyrac mocked a shot to the chest and collapsed on top of Bossuet, who shoved him off with a laugh. “Grainy iPhone photos aside, where is Enjolras? I thought he would be here already.”

“Ah, that the marble lover of liberty would grace us with his presence!” Grantaire exclaimed, eyes twinkling.

“I would not quite call him liberty’s _lover_ , but they certainly are more than just friends,” Jehan quipped from where he lay sprawled across Courfeyrac’s divan.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon, ‘Ferre,” Joly said with a reassuring smile, “I think he said something about having to finish printing out some documents. You know how he gets.”

Combeferre’s brow furrowed slightly, making the small frames ride up on his face. Bossuet swatted Courfeyrac’s arm to keep him from attempting to sneak another photo.

As if he had been able to sense the conversations about his presence, or lack thereof, a key could be heard in the lock, the door swung open, and Enjolras entered the room.

Combeferre had first met Enjolras at freshman orientation, and the pair of them had become friends with Courfeyrac shortly thereafter in one of the university’s required ethics classes. The three of them had then gone on to form the ABC Society, and the rest was history. Even though only a few years had passed, it often felt like the trio had known each other for lifetimes.

“It’s good to have you back, Combeferre,” Enjolras said with a smile, clasping Combeferre’s shoulder fondly as he stood at his usual place before the group.

Enjolras handed out copies of the documents he had been late in procuring, and let Bahorel begin the meeting talking about his efforts to connect with groups on other campuses. The rest of the evening passed in the usual blur of fiery rhetoric from Enjolras, bad puns from Courfeyrac, caustic remarks from Grantaire, and spirited verbal sparring from all.

Afterwards, the group went their separate ways for the night. Jehan, Bahorel, and Grantaire went off to a local bar near Grantaire’s apartment; Feuilly left to get to bed before work in the morning; Eponine too had ducked out, murmuring something about making sure Gavroche hadn’t burnt down the house.

This left Marius, Joly, and Bossuet to clean up in the kitchen. The former two worked on rinsing out the various bottles and drinking glasses that had accumulated over the last few hours. Bossuet mostly supervised, only allowed to handle the plasticware and cans himself.

Enjolras and Combeferre continued to talk about an upcoming rally as Courfeyrac busied himself with gathering up the posters and pamphlets scattered across the coffee table and floor.

“We must make sure that we reach out to not only to other students, but the general public as well,” Enjolras said, “the more diverse groups of people we can reach the better.” As he spoke and looked at Combeferre, a puzzled look came over his features, much as it had at various points during the evening’s meeting.

“My glasses broke,” Combeferre supplied, sensing his friend’s confusion. “You missed that drama before the meeting. This rather, ah, childish replacement is the best I have for the moment.”

A look of realization dawned on Enjolras’s face. “Here,” he began, reaching into his messenger bag and pulling out a battered pair of glasses.

Combeferre blinked in surprise. “How...?”

“Courfeyrac asked me to bring your old pair over,” Enjolras replied. “I was gathering some papers from the flat when he texted me to grab them. He said you’d probably forgotten that you had them buried in your desk drawer.”

Combeferre took the proffered frames from Enjolras and looked at Courfeyrac, who smiled warmly at him. He took off the purple frames, and slipped on the battered ones, his vision sharpening and allowing him to better see his friends’ smiling faces.

“Welcome home, Combeferre.”

**Author's Note:**

> And scene. This is my first proper attempt at a fic in...many years, as well as my first Les Mis fic so I hope you enjoyed. It was great fun to write, and I hope it was fun to read!
> 
> Combeferre's glasses are actually based on a pair I had as a small child, as they were the closest thing 8-year-old me could get to Harry Potter glasses (and purple was my favorite color).
> 
> Also, Combeferre's jab at Courfeyrac about the Chicago Sun-Times is a reference to the fact that the paper fired their photojournalists in favor of training journalists to use their iPhones to take photos for stories. [But actually.](http://petapixel.com/2013/05/31/sun-times-photojournalism-strategy-reporters-with-iphones/)
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://vivelarepublique.tumblr.com)! :)


End file.
